Insights from the Learning Journey «AI in Everyday Philanthropy»

12. Dezember 2023

Last week, StiftungSchweiz in collaboration with SwissFoundations kicked off the Learning Journey «AI in Everyday Philanthropy». This learning journey is aimed at funders and non-profits with the objective to understand better what AI is and can do and foremost, to test it for philanthropic purposes in a secure sandbox environment. In total, 15 organizations embarked on this exciting journey. Here are the key take-aways from this first session.

What is AI and how can we use it in the philanthropic sector?

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, refers to the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. These tasks include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language understanding.
AI technologies encompass a wide range of techniques, such as machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and more. In practice of philanthropic organizations, this can be used, for example, for:

Data-driven decision making
Efficient and more need-oriented funding allocation
Predictive analytics
Automating routine tasks
Collaboration and knowledge sharing
AI-powered fundraising
Virtual reality and AI for storytelling

With regards to ChatGPT, we learned from faculty member Fabio Duó that:

The full power of LLMs (large language models)/ChatGPT comes into play when you combine them into Pipelines, that can automate the prompting and combine it with custom data. 
There are different ways to improve the output of LLMs/ChatGPT with prompt engineering that sometimes seem quite strange. Like improving the output measurably by adding the sentence „It’s very important for my career“. 
GPT4 is currently the most powerful LLM but Open Source ones are catching up quickly and can be run in a private environment.
LLMs can outperform traditional Machine Learning approaches with much less effort in certain areas.

Navigating the Innovation Landscape

In today’s rapidly evolving world, innovation is the driving force behind progress. However, the journey from the inception of a groundbreaking idea to its widespread adoption is complex and multifaceted.

Despite the potential benefits, organizations often struggle with this adaptation process. Also known as the „technology fallacy“, a gap in our understanding of how organizations adapt to innovations, with skepticism, resistance, exploration, and eventual acceptance playing significant roles in this journey. Organizations often focus too much on the technological aspects of digital transformation and neglect the importance of understanding and adapting to the human side of change.

In the philanthropic realm, we observe that grantmaking organizations are more resistant, while grantseeking organizations seem to be more inclined towards exploration. The sweet spot, however, lies in the exploration phase — the magical realm where experiments flourish.

«I already gained valuable insights into AI in the first workshop and, through direct exchange with other foundations and non-profits, understood how we can use this tool with added value for our applicants and the foundation. The fact that these tools are now being developed directly is a form of prototyping that is rarely seen. I am delighted to be part of such a learning journey.» Pascale Vonmont, CEO of Gebert Rüf Foundation and member of the SwissFoundation Board.

We are all change agents!

The session ended with an invitation to all participants to understand themselves as agents of change. Recognizing our potential as change agents allows us to navigate the complex terrain of innovation diffusion more effectively. By embracing the challenges, understanding the dynamics of skepticism and resistance, and fostering a culture of exploration, we can collectively drive positive change.

Next steps in the AI Learning Journey

The Learning Journey will continue over the next 6 months and encourage participants to build their own prototypes and experiment what these can mean in practice. Due to the great response, a second track to this journey will take place, which records the live track and can therefore also be viewed with a time delay, discussions taking place online only. The participants of both – the live and online – track contribute data sets that are used in the experiments according to the „bring your own data“ principle. Interested in joining? Register here

More on the AI Learning Journey in the Philanthropist (German): https://thephilanthropist.ch/kuenstliche-intelligenz-jetzt-einsteigen/

Additional information and resources:

Book: The Technology Fallacy: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation (Management on the Cutting Edge)
Blog: https://www.aitidbits.ai/ (paid) is summarizing current AI developments
AI Community: https://huggingface.co/
In-depth learning on Generative AI: Databricks or Coursera

Last but not least: Become a change agent too, join in and discuss AI in Philanthropy in the Network StiftungSchweiz